This invention relates to online (web, mobile, and IPTV) networks and content providers, and more specifically to allowing advertisers to more accurately target their intended audience.
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks of which can include computers or related electronic devices such as smartphones, phablets, tablets, and many others, not only desktop and laptop computers. People are spending more of their time on the Internet. Via computers and smartphones, people are surfing the Web, sending e-mail, watching videos, reading news, making appointments, shopping, and much more. The Internet has taken market share from many other communications media including the telephone, television, radio, magazines, and newspapers. Consequently, content providers and advertisers want more information about the activities and habits of online users in order to better target content, including advertisements.
Among the different types of information that can be used by advertisers, location information can be particularly valuable. Knowing what location a consumer (also sometimes referred to as an online user) is or was in allows advertisers to more accurately target the consumer's likely desires or needs and determine the availability of products and services nearby.
Previously, this information was difficult to access, or had only limited accuracy. Also, it was difficult to control collection of this information around valuable locations. For example, devices connected to the internet are associated with an Internet Protocol address (or IP address). Geographical location could be derived by using IP addresses, but it has limited accuracy, such as the device's current city. As another example, geographical location could be obtained through GPS triangulation, which is more accurate, but it would require the user to be actively using a mobile device, limiting the number of valuable locations collected for that user. However, with more accurate geographical information and better control of collection of geographical information, advertisers can transmit advertisements that are even more relevant to consumers and increase the likelihood that consumers will find an advertisement useful and eventually purchase advertised products or services.
Therefore, there is a need for a technique to gather more accurate location information, in particular at valuable locations, such as using geofencing and making better use of the information to improve ad targeting and content personalization according to user connection models based on sharing activity among users for online (web, mobile, and IPTV) media.